


dawn of autumn

by eliotkeats



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Worldbuilding, harvest festivals, sibling relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-22 03:28:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12472436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eliotkeats/pseuds/eliotkeats
Summary: The harvest festival was Lucy's idea.





	dawn of autumn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Deepdarkwaters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deepdarkwaters/gifts).



> happy halloween

Once the celebrations after the coronation ceased, the real work began.  A hundred years spent under snow and the Witch’s left the Pevensie children with much work to do.  The flooding caused by the rapid snowmelt made planting crops difficult in the lowlands.  It was Edmund’s idea to put the Witch’s captured allies to work digging canals to dry out the fields as quickly as possible.  Susan spent her days split between council with Peter and the newly formed Parliament, and trying to make the ancient halls of Cair Paravel livable again.

Lucy was largely left to her own devices — a Queen of Narnia indeed, but still a child.  She befriends the faun and centaur children, helps Mr. Tumnus pack his things and move into the castle, and explores the depths of Cair Paravel, trailed by her bodyguards.  

The harvest festival was her idea.

Mrs. Beaver had cooed over the changing leaves while examining the linens airing in one of Cair Paravel’s courtyards..  “When I was a kit, my dear departed mum would tell me how when she was just a young ‘un herself, they’d string garlands of the fallen leaves for the harvest festival.  Ones of popped corn too.  Oh, It’d been so long since Narnia’s had a proper autumn festival.”

Peter likes the idea, when Lucy brings it up to him.  “What a splendid idea, Lu,” he says.  “I dare say everyone could use a holiday, after the hard work we’ve been putting in.  I’ll speak to Tumnus and the others about it, see if we can organize something.”

Summer has faded into autumn, and the hills behind Cair Paravel are shades of gold and amber.  On the horizon, over the ocean, the sun gilds the edges of the clouds.  Three bonfires burn on the beach, as well as a firepit where a massive boar is being roasted — a gift from the dwarves in the hills.  A knot of centaur children race each other along the waterline, hooves kicking up clumps of wet sand as they gallop past, shrieking with laughter.  Mr. Beaver had caught a string of fish, and drafts a faun boy to turn them on spits over a low fire, while Susan helps Mrs. Beaver lay out a quilt and dust the sand out of her fur.  

The merpeople who show up enchant Lucy: men and women with fishbelly pale stomachs and green-gold tails that glinted like the backs of May beetles.  They wriggle their way onto the beach and lay on the sand with their tails in the shallows and their arms folded in the dense yellow silt.  Occasionally a waves crashing over them sends them tumbling out into the surf in peals of laughter, before they make their way back to shore again.  

Their leader brings Lucy a gift — a bag woven of seaweed, full of queerly shaped shells from the ocean floor.  

“Oh, they're lovely!" Lucy exclaims, and calls "Peter, come see!" over her shoulder.

Peter, cheeks ruddy from the brisk breeze, and trousers rolled to his knees, comes over, pronounces the shells ‘tops’, and gets involved in a conversation with several of the merpeople while Lucy sorts through her shells.  

She glances up at him after a few minutes, picking a stray strand of hair away from her eyes.  He’s perched on a half-submerged boulder, leaning forward to speak with the merpeople who’ve folded their arms on the rock, tails swaying beneath the water.  One of his legs is drawn up, shins gritty with damp sand, and he has an arm draped across it.  The cotton undershirt he wears billows as the wind from the ocean quickens.  

He looks the most relaxed he has in months, and Lucy smiles to herself.  Have to practically trick Peter into relaxing, these days.  

Soon enough, it’s supper time: roast potatoes and chestnuts, gingerbread cooked in the fire pits dug into the sandy dirt at the base of the cliffs, a massive boar’s roast, mulled wine, cider pressed from the wild apple trees back in the hills, and hot spiced milk-and-honey for Lucy and the younger fauns.

Peter and Edmund join Lucy and Susan for the meal, far enough from the bonfire that Lucy’s skin doesn’t feel like it’s blistering from the heat.  

Peter being Peter, of course, picks at the food on his plate, distracted.  “The mermaids said they’ve seen ships before, far out to the East.  We’ll likely have to think of coming up with a navy before long, and —”

“Relax, Pete,” Edmund interrupts, stretching, belly down, on the sand, lazy.  He reminds Lucy of a lizard; lethargic and content, soaking up the sun.  “We’re on holiday, at least for today.  Have a chestnut.”

Peter rolls his eyes, but accepts the proffered chestnut, peeling away the shell with ease and popping the morsel into his mouth.

Susan shares her roast sweet potato with Lucy, the charred husk splitting easily around the steaming orange inside.  Just holding it warms Lucy’s fingers.  

When the sun sets over the ocean, the merpeople, eyes large and silver in the dim light, wave goodbye to their Kings and Queens before giggling and chattering as they dive beneath the surface and vanish into the ocean.  

The centaur children, worn out from their races, both horse and human stomachs full from their supper, fold up near the bonfire and fall asleep, legs tucked under them and glossy coats burnished bronze in the firelight.  

Edmund is already fast asleep.

Lucy puts her head in Susan’s lap, and Susan’s slender fingers tug through Lucy’s saltwater stiffened hair, pausing to untangle knots as she goes.  

Peter sighs, looking at the bonfire and their sleeping courtiers.  “It’s been work work work since Aslan left, and there’s still so much to do.”

Susan passes him her cup over Lucy’s head, the gesture blocking out the firelight flickering on Lucy’s face.“Well, you can’t do it all at once, and you certainly can’t do it by yourself.  We’ve hardly seen you the past weeks.  If you’re not in your study you’re with the council or out surveying something or other.”

Peter huffs out a laugh and ducks his head as he buries the base of the goblet in the sand.  “Makes me wish I’d paid more attention when Father went on about Government and Management and How Things  _ Should  _ Be Done.”

“Well, lucky you, I  _ was  _ paying attention,” Susan says.  Her fingers pause in Lucy’s hair.  “Lucy?”  

Lucy mumbles something, unwilling to be stirred from her pleasant drowsiness.  

Susan sighs and pulls Lucy’s cloak up around her shoulders.  “Someone’s got to take her to bed.”

Peter reaches out and smooths Lucy’s skirt over her ankles.  “Narnian night air’s likely more healthy than London’s; it can’t do any harm to sleep outside for one night.”

“Will you lot shut it?” Edmund mutters.  He rolls over and kicks Peter in the shin.  “Some of us are trying to sleep.”

“Shush, Ed, you’ll wake Lucy,” Susan chides him.  

Edmund grumbles and throws an arm over his eyes, shading them from the flickering firelight.  

Lucy’s eyelids begin to droop.

The next time she opens them, it’s well into the night.  The sky overhead is pitch black, with pinpricks of starlight.  The air is cooler, but Susan is warm against Lucy’s back, and over the rush and ebb of waves on the shoreline, Lucy hears the sound of all the centaurs snoring.  

Carefully, she pushes Susan’s arm off of her waist and sits up, shaking her hair out of her eyes.  

Peter is sleeping on his back, within arms’ reach, one hand tucked behind his head, the other one resting on his stomach as it rises and falls with every slow breath he takes.  Edmund is a short distance away, curled on his side.

The bonfires have died down into little campfires, tended by a pair of drowsy looking fauns with blankets slipping off their shoulders.  

At her side, Susan sighs and murmurs something, reaching up to fumble at Lucy, drowsily complaining about the loss of warmth, so Lucy lies back down and pulls her cloak up to her chin.  Susan snuggles in against her and in moments, is sound asleep again.  

Lucy digs her toes into the sand, seeking the residue heat that seeped into the sand during the day.  Winter will be here again, likely before they expect it, but at least this time it’ll have an end in sight, and Christmas tucked away in the middle of it.  For now, everything’s all right.  

And Peter was right.  Narnian night air is  _ heaps  _ better than London’s.   
  



End file.
